“Formation of large scale structure in the universe and systems with long-range interactions”

In the treatment of physical systems there is a fundamental distinction between those in which interactions among fundamental constituents (i.e. particles) are short or long ranged. In the former case, differently from the latter one, the coupling of each particle with all other system particles must be considered. This situation gives rise to a notable complexity in the treatment of systems with long-range interactions when compared with what happens in systems where interactions are short ranged.

Indeed the basic concepts and instruments of equilibrium statistical mechanics cannot be simply applied to systems with long-range interactions. This kind of situation was firstly studied in the context of astrophysics and cosmology where the interaction was the gravitational one, and only recently there have been identified laboratory systems with other kind of long-range interactions. The aim of the course is to provide a basic knowledge on the dynamics and thermodynamics properties of a self-gravitating gas of particles.

It will be touched then the problem of cosmological structure formation and the problems related to the general physical properties of systems with long-range interactions .